This handsome display at the VA master plan celebration January 28, 2016. The now-approved master plan’s previous draft didn’t mention the biomedical nuclear and chemical dump leaking beneath the surface. Nor did it mention how large the dump’s impact zone actually is: Begin at lower left arroyo in model and go northwest up and hit the terraced land jutting out. This land, and the arroyo heading all the way north on the left side of the model are where evidence of radiological and chemical contamination have been confirmed by the VA as exposed by EnviroReporter.com. The master plan falsely relabels the Brentwood dump as green space.
This “Pedestrian Circulation” map shows the dump in a harmless green space color with extensive “pedestrian paths and plazas.” A plaza juts our from a path right in the heart of the VA’s now-confirmed biomedical nuclear and chemical dump. It’s near Tombstone Hill where EnviroReporter.com has repeatedly found illegally disposed veterans’ tombstones that the VA has had to pick up and dispose of properly according to regulations. Perhaps the place could be named Radium Plaza since it sits on top of groundwater hot with the stuff according the VA’s own $2 million tests.
Here the VA ventures into territory that is as unscrupulous as it is covert. The dump, which is fenced of with “DO NOT ENTER” signs, and is still overseen by the Nuclear Regulatory Agency, is labeled “existing green space.” This falsehood in the master plan is not the only one that attempts to erase the dump by caveat.
This VA master plan rendering calls the dump “ARROYO PARK” in its “Vision Plan.” The park, which encompasses Brentwood School’s athletic fields, is across a road from “Supportive Housing” meaning that the consequences of leaving the leaking toxic waste dump in place will first and foremost impact veterans because they will use this land.
In this master plan map, a road runs right through the dump with new trails and extensively landscaping. Tons of rubble including concrete, marble and rebar are also in the dump sticking out of the ground in the most unlikely of places, Brentwood School for one. This rubble and the biomedical nuclear and chemical dump sucking up toxins through plants and polluting the groundwater, are easily dealt with: the master plan now calls the area “Green Space.”
These 2010 VA maps show that the dump indeed exists. The VA proved what it now “Unless authorities excavate the waste and send the material and contaminated soil to a licensed landfill, no construction, excavation, recreation, or agriculture should take place in and around the contaminated zone,” said longtime Brentwood VA dump observer Dr. Bennett Ramberg. “It should be fenced off and remain off limits.”
VA maintains the dump is safe. Fenced off like it is. Getting the Nuclear Regulatory Agency to sign off on it already being “green space” would help VA leave the dump in place even with the results of its $2 million site study. There has been no study, however, on what developing the dump through extensive earth moving needed to complete plans shown above in the 2016 master plan.
Reported on December 17, 2015 in West LA VA ‘master plan’ covers up its chemical and nuclear dump
“Elevated levels of tritium and radium were detected in the groundwater samples,” says the VA’s 2009 report ignored in the 2015 and 2016 versions of the West LA VA’s master plan. “[T]ritium was reported as the most common nuclide disposed of in the canyon. Its presence at these levels can only be due to that disposal. Background levels of tritium in groundwater are less than 10 pCi/L [picocuries per litre, a radiation measurement]. The 2009 round of sampling from the same wells found tritium at 29, 10 and 29 pCi/L, respectively.”
Reported on December 17, 2015 in West LA VA ‘master plan’ covers up its chemical and nuclear dump
EnviroReporter.com‘s investigation of the West LA VA dump revealed that evidence of biomedical waste dumping in the filled-in arroyo now covered by Brentwood School’s multi-million-dollar sports complex.
Reported on December 10, 2009 in LA Weekly’s Brentwood’s Toxic Grave
The VA’s 2010 dump report, which cost $2 million, used a map from 1964 to identify the site.
The Brentwood School athletic field gas readings are extreme. It appears that the chloroform VOC readings are between 301 to 1,012 times the EPA’s Preliminary Remediation Goal for the toxic chemical. There is no mention of this in the VA’s 2015 master plan. There are also no warning signs around the athletic field alerting users as to the gas in the grass.
Reported on December 17, 2015 in West LA VA ‘master plan’ covers up its chemical and nuclear dump
The benzene gas detection along a heavily trafficked path by the baseball diamond’s out building is easier to see in this close-up.
Note that the very upper left sampling site in the northwest corner of the sampling grid: it is positive for benzene gas. It is also on land leased by Brentwood School.
Reported on December 17, 2015 in West LA VA ‘master plan’ covers up its chemical and nuclear dump
The following four maps, published by EnviroReporter.com in 2006, indicate the location of radioactive waste that resulted from experiments conducted by the VA and UCLA beginning in the 1940s:
2000 Locus Ash Map
This map shows the three areas where biomedical waste, including ash remains, were found during excavation to build Brentwood School’s athletic fields.
Click here to download a pdf of this map
2000 Locus Dump Map
This map mysteriously shows the fence making an angle where none exists, thereby making it look like the park isn’t over part of the nuclear waste dump.
Click here to download a pdf of this map
1995 Map
This map shows the dump under the south field of the Barrington Rec Center. This is the first time that the inaccurate angle of the fence is shown though it still reveals the dump to be partially under the park.
Click here to download a pdf of this map
Pre-1980 Map
This map shows the locations that VA workers remember dumping biomedical nuclear and chemical waste, including radioactive animal carcasses, from 1948-1968.
Click here to download a pdf of this map
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